Zionists have concealed the historical conversions to Judaism, adopted the Old
Testament as the "storehouse of national memory" and created a
"metanarrative" of contemporary Jews as stemming from the Jews of the Bible. Sand refers to this ethnic
identity as "wholly fictitious [but] discriminatory" and portrays Jews
as "a heterogeneous mosaic of human populations" emanating from "a great
variety of cultural-linguistic groups, each with a distinctive origin"
and no more a race than Christians are. – Veterans Today

Dominant Social Theme: Why, Jews are ... they are
... they did ... they had ... they could ... well, it's OBVIOUS. We
just can't explain it right now.

Free-Market Analysis:Veterans Today, no friend of the Israeli establishment, has reviewed a book by Shlomo Sand entitled The Invention of the Jewish People (Verso Books, London and New York). Shlomo Sand is a historian at Israel's University of Tel Aviv.

This is an interesting book because it apparently proposes serious
revisions to the history of the Jewish people. It is also an important
book because as the new world order grows in magnitude and begins to become more real, people inevitably
blame Jews and Zionists, and yet some of this blame may well be
misplaced.

DB is a libertarian paper analyzing dominant social themes of the power elite; and the "Jewish meme"
is a fundamental one. The power elite has evidently and obviously
cultivated anti-Semitism in order to ensure a certain level of immunity.
History, in a sense, may have been falsified. That's Dr. Sand talking,
not us.

Question the rush to world government – or at least its strategic
components – and one is apt to be labeled an anti-Semite. From our point
of view this is no accident. Yet, increasingly there seem to be
difficulties ... First, it is not at all clear what a Jew is from a
historical standpoint or even a religious standpoint, given that there are so many Jewish schisms and historical narratives.

Second, and more important, it is certainly not true that those
behind the expanding one-world order are Jewish in any recognizable
sense. In 2005, in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy, Ellen
Levy-Coffman published a study entitled, "A Mosaic of People: The Jewish
Story and a Reassessment of the DNA Evidence." Her introduction states
the following:

The new analysis shows that Jewish ancestry reflects a mosaic of
genetic sources. While earlier studies focused on the Middle Eastern
component of Jewish DNA, new research has revealed that both Europeans
and Central Asians also made significant genetic contributions to Jewish
ancestry. Moreover, while the DNA studies have confirmed the close
genetic interrelatedness of many Jewish communities, they have also
confirmed what many suspected all along: Jews do not constitute a single
group distinct from all others. Rather, modern Jews exhibit a
diversity of genetic profiles, some reflective of their
Semitic/Mediterranean ancestry, but others suggesting an origin in
European and Central Asian groups. The blending of European, Semitic,
Central Asian and Mediterranean heritage over the centuries has led to
today's Jewish populations.

She also makes an interesting point about Khazarist genetic influence on "Jewish" people:

Many of the DNA studies on Ashkenazim fail to adequately address
the complexity of the genetic evidence, in particular, the significant
genetic contribution of European and Central Asian peoples in the makeup
of the contemporary Ashkenazi population. One important contribution
to Ashkenazi DNA appears to have originated with the Khazars, an ancient
people of probable Central Asian stock that lived in southern Russia
during the 8th-12th centuries CE.

Sand apparently deals with this Khazarist influence and accuses the
Rabbinical establishment of downplaying in the 20th century the
antecedents of Judaism, which were well known previously. In fact, the
review labels him part of a "post-Zionist" movement contesting the
"imagined universe" of Jewish history, with its "mythological kingdom of
David." He accuses Rabbinical Judaism of avoiding its own history and
challenges "the nationalization of the Bible and its transformation into
a reliable history book and its basis for the sacred trinity of
Bible-Nation-Land of Israel."

This makes a good deal of sense to us, and fits in with arguments
we've been making, generally, about Jewish and Zionist responsibility
for the new world order. We've even proposed that what seems to be a
"Jewish" motivated effort to introduce global government – a new world
order – is actually the work of ruthless intergenerational banking
families that may use "Jewishness" and anti-Semitism as a shield behind
which to hide.

In other words, globalism is not, perhaps, a Jewish movement any more
than the Italian mafia's attempts to create an international crime
syndicate is an "Italian" movement. The Italian mafia is composed mostly
of Italians because it is set firmly within the cultural context of
Italy. The one-world conspiracy is feasibly led by "Jewish" families
that employ Jews the way the Italian mafia employs Italians. Here's some
more from the review of Sand's book:

He is firm in challenging "the nationalization of the Bible and
its transformation into a reliable history book" and its basis for "the
sacred trinity of Bible-Nation-Land of Israel."

Nowhere within Rome's detailed records is there documentation of
an expulsion from Judea that could be a basis for an "Exile" and a
"Diaspora." Rather, Judaism's history has been one of converting
non-Semitic peoples.Judaism was historically evangelistic, and within
officially polytheistic Rome, itself struggling with hedonism and
corruption, the monotheistic religion offered moral grounding for
converts. From there Judaism spread throughout the Empire, only to slow
in the fourth century when a repressive Christianity, having become
differentiated from its Judaic root, became official state religion.

Proselytizing and conversion to Judaism was widespread in the
Mediterranean and north into the Caucasus. In particular, the now
vanished empire of Khazaria, which extended from the Black and Caspian
seas well into Russia, underwent massive conversion to Judaism in the
eight century, thereafter to become the primary source of Jewry in
Eastern Europe.

That Shlomo Sand stuff is like that James Bond movie where he hopped along the backs of the gators: it's based on picking isolated facts then building a grand structure. In particular, it seizes on a soundbyte that 10% of the ancient Roman Empire was Jewish because of mass conversion to claim that there never was a Jewish "nation-race", that many Jews are really descendants of converted Arabs, Berbers, Khazars, etc., and that Zionists have created the myth for "racist thinking", with the inevitable punchline:

"The ideal project for solving the century-long conflict... would be the creation of a
democratic binational state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River."

Of course the whole Bible is automatically off the table as pure myth, which begs the question of what kind of people would deliberately lie to themselves rather than try to record their history like every other kind of people.

Yes, after 2K years a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, and the so-called Jewish people is a motley group, but they all share the Jewish religion, or mothers or grandmothers who were in it, and all share rejection of Christianity and Islam. That's good enough for me, since both Christendom and the Muslim World have stunk themselves up for centuries by persecuting them, and they always knew what a Jew was, namely, those non-Christian non-Muslim infidels herded into ghettos with their own moral-legal code. Yes, some of the intelligentsia tried passing to get out of the ghetto, until Hitler arrived and started smoking them out, forcing the entire Jewish people to speed-up their timetable for their own homeland, voila, Israel, and screw everybody else.

If it weren't for ISLAM, the Jewish state of Israel would have been established with no problem long ago, and been at peace ever since.

Getting back to Slung on Sand, to quote myself:

How about the ideal project being the creation of a democratic uninational state in the same region composed only of Jews, after all the Muslims either skedaddle or convert? Actually nobody knows the real Jewish pop. of the ancient Roman Empire, even in Israel, and as for Rome itself, the Jews were forced to live in one of the shittiest areas with a poisoned aqueduct, and their
Jewish catacombs don't seem to hold that many people, 50K maybe, with most of them fleeing from Israel because of the Roman wars, or brought in as slaves by the Romans and later freed, with any uncircumcised Roman who converted to Judaism and quit eating pork and started studying the seditious laws of Moses being treated as a leper by the aristocracy, and likely confused with a Christian, so to propose a master theory of
Jewish history as a total fiction cooked up by racists based on somebody's estimate of that long-dead pop. is not only shakier than Japan during an earthquake, the work of an Israel history ignoramus who is too lazy to study the subject before pontificating about it, it's obviously a tawdry attempt to push a modern political agenda, like anti-Semitism and the illegitimization of the Jewish state of Israel, tell me, does a thief or robber turn on the lights when robbing your house.

Isn't this history stuff interesting? Take the plunge free in your browser today:

The Historyscoper's Jerusalem Historyscope

Comment by J E Andreasen

Entered on: 10/14/2011 9:11:08 PM

Given that this is Succot, as an afterthought, in answering the question; "What is a Jew?", I would advise consulting the core principles which define them. Maimonides distilled them into "Thirteen Principles" known as "Ani Maamin". On that topic, I submit the following:

Ani Ma'amin
By Yitzchak Dorfman

The Rebbe of Modzitz, Rabbi Shaul Yedidya Elazar, had Chassidim throughout the major towns and cities of Poland. One of these was Reb Azriel David Fastag,
who was noted for his exceptional voice throughout Warsaw. Many came to
the shul where Reb Azriel David and his brothers, who were also blessed
with lovely voices, would pray on the High Holy Days. Reb Azriel David
would lead the prayers, while his brothers accompanied him as a choir.
His crisp, clear and moving voice had a profound effect on all who heard
him.

Reb Azriel David lived simply, earning his livelihood from a small
clothing store,
but his happiness and fulfillment came from another source -- the world
of Chassidic music. His moving tunes made their way to Otvoczk (a suburb
of Warsaw), where his Rebbe, Rabbi Shaul Yedidya Elazar appreciated
them immensely. The day a new niggun (melody) by Reb Azriel David arrived was a festive day for for the Rebbe.

Dark clouds began to cover the skies of Europe -- the clouds of
Nazism. In spite of the terrible decrees, the yellow patch and the
ghettoes, most Jews could not fathom what was about to befall them. Only
a few managed to escape the clutches of the Nazi occupation to safe
havens. One of them was the Modzitzer Rebbe, Rebbe Shaul Yedidya Elazar,
whose Chassidim made a tremendous effort to save him. As the Nazis
entered Poland, the Chassidim smuggled him out of Poland to Vilna, in
Lithuania, and from there he made his way across Russia to Shanghai,
China, eventually arriving in America in 1940.

Meanwhile in Poland tens of thousands of Jews were being shipped off daily to their
death in cattle cars that were part of the railway system.
Roused from their warm beds in Warsaw in the middle of the night, husbands were
separated from their wives, children wrested from the arms of their parents.
The elderly were often shot on the spot, in front of their loved ones.
Then the Jews were gathered and sent off in those trains to a place
where their existence would no longer trouble the Nazis -- to Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek.

Inside the crowded cars, over the clatter of the cattle cars' wheels,
rose the sounds of people gasping, sighing, weeping and dying. One
could hear the stifled cries of children crushed together. But in one
such car, headed toward the infamous death camp Treblinka, the sound of
singing could be heard.

It seems that an elderly Jew, wrapped up in his ragged clothing, his
face white as snow, had made his way over to his neighbor on the death
train, begging him to remind him the tune of Ma'areh Kohen sung by Modzitzer Rebbe during the Yom Kippur service.

"Now? Now, what you want to hear is niggunim?" answered the other,
with a hard look at the Chassid, thinking that maybe all the suffering had caused him to lose his mind.

But this Modzitzer Chassid, Reb Azriel David Fastag, was no longer
paying attention to his friend, or to anyone else on the train. In his
mind, he was at the prayer stand next to his Rebbe on Yom Kippur, and it
is he who was leading the prayerbefore the Rebbe and all the Chassidim.

Suddenly, there appeared before his eyes the words of the twelfth of the
Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith: Ani ma'amin b'emuna sheleima, b'viat
hamoshiach; v'af al pi she'yismamaya, im kol zeh, achakeh lo b'chol yom she'yavo --
"I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Moshiach; and even though he may tarry,
nevertheless, I wait each day for his coming." Closing his eyes, he meditated on these
words and thought, "Just now, when everything seems lost, is a Jew's faith put to the test."

It was not long before he began to hum a quiet tune to these words.
There, amidst the death and despair on the train to Treblinka, the
Chassid was transformed into a pillar of song, bringing
forth out of his bloodied lungs the song of the eternity of the Jewish People.
He was unaware of the silence in the cattle car, and of the hundreds of ears
listening attentively in amazement. He also didn't hear the voices as they gradually
joined his song, at first quietly, but soon growing louder and louder.

The song spread from car to car. Every mouth that could still draw a breath
joined in Reb Azriel Dovid's Ani Ma'amin.

As if waking from a dream, Reb Azriel David opened his eyes to the
sight of
the singing train. His eyes were red from crying, his cheeks wet with
tears. In a choked voice, he cried out: "I will give half of my portion
in Olam Habbah (the World to Come) to whoever can take my song to the Modzitzer Rebbe!"

A hushed silence descended upon the train. Two young men appeared,
promising to bring the song to the Rebbe at any cost. One of them
climbed upon the other, and
finding a small crack of the train's roof broke out a hole from which to
escape.
Poking his head out under the open sky, he said, "I see the blue
heavens above us, the stars are twinkling and the moon, with a fatherly
face, is looking at me."

"And what do you hear?" asked his companion.

"I hear," the young man answered, "the angels on high singing Ani Ma'amin,
and it's ascending to the seven firmaments of heaven!"

Bidding farewell to their brothers and sisters on the train, the two
proceeded to jump off, one after the other. One was killed instantly
from the fall.
The other survived, taking the memory of the song with him. He
eventually found his way to Land of Israel (perhaps to the Modzitzer Rebbe's son, the author of Imrei Aish, who was in Tel-Aviv), and the notes were sent by mail to Rebbe Shaul Yedidya Elazar in New York.

Upon receiving the notes and having the Reb Azriel Dovid's Ani Ma'amin sung before him, the Modzitzer Rebbe said: "When they sang Ani Ma'amin on
the death train, the pillars of the world were shaking. The Almighty said,
'Whenever the Jews will sing Ani Ma'amin, I will remember the six million victims and have mercy on the rest of My People.'"

It is told that on the first Yom Kippur that the Modzitzer Rebbe sang the Ani Ma'amin, there were thousands of Jews in the shul. The entire
congregation
burst into tears, which fell like water into the pool of tears and blood
of the Jewish people. The tune soon spread throughout world Jewry.

"With this niggun," said Rebbe Shaul Yedidya Elazar, "the Jewish people went to the gas chambers. And with this niggun, the Jews will march to greet Moshiach."

To hear Reb Azriel David Fastag's Ani Maamin, click here

Biographical note:Rabbi Shaul Yedidya Elazer Taub (1886-1947), the second Modzitzer
Rebbe, succeeded his father, Rabbi Israel, in 1920. At the outbreak of
World War II he escaped Poland and made his way eventually to New York
in 1940.
He traveled extensively in the USA, bringing Torah and niggunim to many communities. He may have been the most prolific Chassidic
composer of all time, with the total output numbering close to 1000
compositions. Some of them may be heard on the Modzitz website (www.Modzitz.org). He was also known for his extraordinary love for the Holy Land. On his fourth and last trip there in 1947
he intended to remain and settle, but he passed away that same year. He was the last person buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem until after the Six Day War.

Comment by J E Andreasen

Entered on: 10/14/2011 8:43:00 PM

The
Rebbe teaches:

The Zohar explains
the difference between Noach and his righteous
successors: Noach “did not pray for the world,” for the
members of his generation, and therefore the waters of the flood are called
“the waters of Noach,”[1] i.e., the flood is attributed to him.[2]

In contrast, Moses displayed self-sacrifice by demanding that G–d forgive the
Jewish people for the sin of worshipping the Golden Calf.[3]

However, the Midrash tells us that Noach rebuked the people and encouraged them
to repent, implying that he did care about the state of his generation.
If so, why didn’t he pray for them and plead to G–d to have mercy upon them?

The explanation: Noach ’s rebuke did not stem from an altruistic desire to help
the people, but solely from the desire to relieve himself of G–d’s command.

As Chassidus says, “Noach did not devote
himself in his rebuke and warnings to inspire them to repent,”[4] because the
main purpose of his rebuke was to fulfill the command that he had been
commanded. This explains why he didn’t act with Moses’ self-sacrifice by going
to the trouble to pray for them.